Organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) are useful for display applications and in particular, mobile hand held display applications. To achieve efficient electroluminescence OLEDs have typically been manufactured to include separate layers of a hole transport material (HTM) and an emitting electron transport material (ETM). During operation, an applied electric field causes positive charges (holes) and negative charges (electrons) to be respectively injected from the anode and the cathode of the OLED to recombine and thus produce light emission. In other known OLED displays, the hole transport and electron transport layers are doped with organic dyes in order to enhance the efficiency or to improve the stability of the OLED. OLEDs have also been developed in which hole transport material and emitting electron transport material are mixed together in one single layer.
One problem associated with OLEDs is the development of high-performance materials with desirable properties. Many new materials with RGB (red, green, blue) emitting colors have been developed to meet the requirements for full-color displays. While green emitting materials are relatively well developed for OLEDs, satisfactory blue materials with good color purity, high efficiency, and good stability are still in demand. One such known material is 2-tert-butyl-9,10-bis-(β-napthyl)-anthracene (TBADN).
In a typical OLED, the light emitting layer can be present between a hole transport layer and an electron transport layer. The light-emitting layer can comprise a host material doped with a guest material (dopant), as shown in FIG. 1. The light emitting layer can provide an efficient site for the recombination of the injected hole-electron pair followed by energy transfer to the guest material which can produce highly efficient electroluminescence. Ideally, the same host material should be able to be doped with an appropriate guest material to be able to produce red, green, or blue emission depending on the color emission from the guest material. It can be difficult to find a larger energy gap host material than the blue emitting guest material. 2-tert-butyl-9,10-bis-(β-napthyl)-anthracene (TBADN) can have an excellent wide energy gap host for color OLEDS.